social networking

Netflix and Twitter were amongst an array of websites and services taken down this morning by a DDoS attack. This list of sites and services also appears to have included SoundCloud, Disqus, PayPal, Spotify, and Reddit. Spotify reported issues to the public starting at 8AM Central time this morning, the 21st of October, 2016.

Facebook has been doubling-down on streaming lately, pushing election debates and more to its addicted audience, and now the social network is adding casting support to your TV. The update allows Facebook to hook up wirelessly to one of a number of set-top boxes or dongles - including Apple TV and Chromecast - and it works both from the mobile app and the browser. The goal, Facebook says, is to broaden the number of ways you can watch video content shared by your friends on the service.

Frequent Snapchat users will be pleased to hear about a set of changes coming to the app's popular Story feature. The first is a removal of the Auto Advance setting, which would automatically play every new video from friends, jumping to one after the other, when you only wanted to watch one. Replacing this is something new called Story Playlists, which lets users choose which friends' videos they want to watch and in what order.

Fandango, one the most popular ways to buy movie tickets online, has just partnered with Facebook to launch a feature allowing users to look up and pay for tickets right within the social networking app. In a surprising twist, it actually sounds like something that will be useful, unlike the whole messenger chatbot trend going on right now. Users can simply lookup a movie on Facebook, and buy their tickets right from the film's page.

As you might've already heard, a little over a week ago saw one of SpaceX's rockets explode on its launch pad just prior to its mission to deliver a Facebook satellite into space. Thankfully no one was hurt when the Falcon 9 rocket was lost, but the mishap comes as a surprise following SpaceX's recent string of successes at landing rockets at sea. Turns out, the private space agency is also a bit confused, and now CEO Elon Musk has put out a request for help from witnesses.

Twitter has been known to ban accounts for several reasons, such as if they're connected to known hacking groups or extremist organizations, and sometimes if the use is offensive/abusive. Once an account has been suspended, there's really not supposed to be anyway to reverse the ban unless the social network itself decides to. That's why is comes as a surprise that hackers have not only gained control of a handful of said accounts, but actually managed to reactivate them as well.

As the world's most popular social network, Facebook's biggest competition in recent years has been Snapchat, the messaging app that's hugely popular with teens. In order to prove that it's still hip and cool to the younger generations, Facebook has just released a new social media app for iOS called Lifestage, and to make sure it doesn't catch on among boring adults, it can only be used by those who are 21 or younger.

Photo-sharing social network Instagram took a big swipe at rival Snapchat earlier this month with the launch of Instagram Stories. But whether or not you feel like it's a cheap copy or it one-ups Snapchat's version, the feature is turning out to be very popular among users. The only draw-back at this point is that Instagram Stories can only be viewed in the mobile apps, and not on the desktop via browser.

If you're one of the many, many smartphone owners who uses their device in bed before falling asleep, especially for browsing Twitter, there's good news on the way. The social network seems to be catching on to the growing trend of "dark modes" available on various OSes and apps, and introduced a "night mode" option to its own mobile app last month, albeit only on Android. iOS users may soon get in on the eye-saving goodness, as dark mode has arrived on the latest beta version of Twitter for iPhone.

Facebook doesn’t make it easy to avoid having your birthday broadcast to all your friends; in fact, it has taken steps to boost birthday celebrations on the social network, including things like launching the Facebook Birthday Cam earlier this year. If you love the digital celebrations, then good news: Facebook has launched a new cheesy birthday recap video that takes at least three of your birthday well wishes and mashes them up into a cake-filled celebratory video.

Following in the footsteps of Snapchat, it seems like just about every social media service is adding a stickers feature to their photo-sharing capabilities, regardless if it's something users are asking for or not. Apple's revamped Messages app in iOS 10 is getting stickers (along with a bunch of other annoying visual effects), and now Twitter is jumping on bandwagon.

There's a huge number of people around the world now playing Pokemon Go — well, when the servers are working, that is — including plenty of single men and women monster hunters. 'What if there was a way for people to browse other singles, find a match, and go out a play Pokemon Go together?', you say. First, I'd say you're pretty smart; second, unfortunately, someone has already thought of it: PokéDates.